Apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues

ABSTRACT

An apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues having a container divided by a partition wall into two separate chambers, a dispensing chamber and a disposing chamber, wherein the dispensing chamber comprises three elastic structural elements, one associated with dispensing chamber&#39;s floor, another with a dispensing chamber&#39;s side wall and another with a dispensing chamber&#39;s adjacent side wall, such that the dispensing chamber can receive and hold tight tissue boxes or tissue stacks of various sizes, dispense tissues therefrom trough a dispensing opening, and wherein the disposing chamber can receive used tissues through a disposing opening.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

Not Applicable

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not Applicable

REFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING COMPACT DISC APPENDIX

Not Applicable

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates generally to tissue dispensers and more particularly to an apparatus that can dispense tissues from tissue boxes of various sizes and that can also accommodate the sanitary disposal of used tissues.

2. Description of the Related Art

In various circumstances, such as when running a cold and lying in bed or when working with children, as a teacher in a classroom, people have the need to use tissues from a tissue box, such as to blow their nose, and then dispose sanitarily of the used tissue. When in bed for example, oftentimes, because the person is too sick to get out of the bed to throw the used tissue into the trash can, the used tissue ends up on the floor or on a night stand, causing the germs to spread into the bedroom. Similarly, a teacher would need to leave a child she may attend to in order to throw the used tissue into the trash can in an attempt to prevent germs from affecting the child. That is inconvenient and inefficient. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus that can dispense clean tissues and also accommodate the sanitary disposal of used tissue until a later time when the used tissues can be dumped into a trash can.

Further, while there are other tissue dispensers available, they do not appear to address the size or shape variations of the tissue boxes or tissue stacks therein. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues that can also solve this problem.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key aspects or essential aspects of the claimed subject matter. Moreover, this Summary is not intended for use as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

In one exemplary embodiment, an apparatus for dispensing tissues is provided, having two chambers, one for dispensing tissues and another for sanitarily disposing of used tissues. The chamber for dispensing tissues is configured to accommodate various sizes of tissue boxes or tissue stacks and to properly dispense tissues therefrom, by being equipped with one or more elastic structural elements. Thus, an advantage is the versatility of the apparatus to work with tissue boxes from different manufacturers. Another advantage is the convenient and sanitary disposal of used tissues that prevents spreading of germs or other contaminants.

The above embodiment and advantages, as well as other embodiments and advantages, will become apparent from the ensuing description and accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For exemplification purposes, and not for limitation purposes, embodiments of the invention are illustrated in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates the top perspective view of an apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 illustrates an enlarged front view of the structural element 111 from FIG. 1.

FIG. 2a illustrates an alternative design of the structural element 111 from FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 illustrates the front view of a structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 illustrates the top perspective view of an alternative design of the structural element from FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 illustrates the top perspective view of another alternative design of the structural element from FIG. 3.

FIG. 6 illustrates the cross-sectional view of another structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 illustrates the cross-sectional view of yet another structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1.

FIG. 8 illustrates the perspective view of yet another structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1.

FIG. 9 illustrates the apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues from FIG. 1 housing a tissue box 950.

FIG. 10 illustrates the apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues from FIG. 1 housing a larger tissue box 950.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

What follows is a detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention in which the invention may be practiced. Reference will be made to the attached drawings, and the information included in the drawings is part of this detailed description. The specific preferred embodiments of the invention, which will be described herein, are presented for exemplification purposes, and not for limitation purposes. It should be understood that structural and/or logical modifications could be made by someone of ordinary skills in the art without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefore, the scope of the invention is defined by the accompanying claims and their equivalents.

FIG. 1 illustrates the top perspective view of an apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues, according to an embodiment. As shown the apparatus 100 for dispensing and disposing of tissues includes a container 100 a having front, back, left, right and bottom walls and being divided in two separate chambers 101, 102 by a partition wall 103. The first chamber 101 is configured to receive and house a tissue box (see 950 in FIGS. 9-10) or a tissue stack and to dispense tissues therefrom. The second chamber 102 is configured to receive and temporary store used tissues user wishes to dispose of, thus facilitating sanitary disposal and containment of used tissues.

As shown, the first/dispensing chamber 101 may be closed at the top by a door 104, which may be attached to the container 100 a using hinges 106. The door 104 may be opened by a user to, for example, allow for the insertion of tissue box 950 into chamber 101. Similarly, the second/disposing chamber 102 may be closed at the top by a door 105, which may be attached to the container 100 a using hinge 107. The door 105 may be opened by a user to, for example, allow for emptying chamber 102 into a trash can.

Door 104 may have a dispensing opening 108 through which a user may retrieve tissues from the tissue box 950 (FIGS. 9-10) housed in chamber 101. Dispensing opening 108 may be closed by one or more flaps 110, to, for example, keep germs, dust or other contaminants from entering chamber 101 when not in use. Alternatively, the flaps 110 may be configured to catch the subsequent tissue and thus facilitate the sequential dispensing of the tissues.

Similarly, door 105 may have a disposing opening 109 through which a user may dispose of used tissues into chamber 102. Flap(s) 110 a may be provided to also close disposing opening 109, to, for example, prevent the spread of germs from the used tissues into. Further, it should be noted that the partition wall 103 also prevents the spread of germs or other contaminants, from the used tissues disposed of in the disposing chamber 102, into the dispensing chamber 101 where the unused tissues are.

It should be understood that other closing means, such as sliding doors or the like, may be used to close openings 108 and/or 109.

Again, the first chamber 101 is configured to receive and house a tissue box (see 950 in FIGS. 9-10) or a stack of tissues and to dispense tissues therefrom. Since tissue boxes come in various sizes and/or shapes, it is important to configure disposing chamber 101 to accommodate such tissue box variations, and thus, make the apparatus 100 for dispensing and disposing of tissues universal, or at least highly versatile. For example, if the tissue box or the stack of tissues contained by the tissue box is larger than the disposing chamber 101, the apparatus 100 for dispensing and disposing of tissues could not be properly used. This is because the tissue box or the stack of tissues therefrom could not be inserted into chamber 101 without some sort of improvisation (e.g., inserting only a portion of the tissue stack at a time in a bent or folded position). On the other hand, if the tissue box or the tissue stack is too small, it may move inside chamber 101 and/or be too far from dispensing opening 108 (e.g., when the tissue box is not tall enough), thus interfering with a convenient retrieval of tissues through opening 108.

To address the above problems, the apparatus 100 for dispensing and disposing of tissues is preferably equipped with preferably three elastic structural elements 111-113, as shown, to accommodate variations in the height, width and depth, respectively, of the tissue box 950 (FIGS. 9-10), or the stack of tissues (if the stack of tissues is directly placed in chamber 101).

As shown, an element 111 may be attached to the floor 115 of chamber 101, an element 112 may be attached to the inside surface 114 of chamber's left side wall, and an element 113 (schematically shown only, but similar with 111, 112) may be attached to the inside of chamber's back wall. It should be understood that more than one element can be attached to each wall or floor.

Thus, when, for example, the tissue box 950 (see FIG. 9) has a height that is smaller than the height of chamber 101, but the height difference is not greater than the maximum height of the elastic structural element 111, the tissue box 950 will be pushed up and supported by element 111, such that the top of the tissue box 950 is near the dispensing opening 108. It should be noted that for example the elastic structural element 111 may be substantially as tall as chamber 101 when in normal/uncompressed state. This may be advantageous, when, for example, a stack of tissues is placed directly in chamber 101, by pushing the stack up to the last tissue, progressively as the top tissues are dispensed through opening 108.

As another example, shown in FIG. 10, when the tissue box 950 is wider than what is initially allowed by the distal end 112 a of the relaxed/uncompressed element 112 and the partition wall 103, the element 112 will be forced to contract (i.e., distal end 112 moving to the left in FIG. 10) to accommodate the larger width of the tissue box 950. However, because element 112 is elastic, it will still exercise some pressure onto the left side of the tissue box 950, thus, keeping it in place. It should be understood that element 111 and element 113 function in a similar way to accommodate variations in the height or depth, respectively, of the tissue box 950, or of the tissue stack if placed directly into the disposing chamber 101.

FIG. 2 illustrates an enlarged front view of the structural element 111 from FIG. 1. Again, structural elements 112 and 113 may be the same as structural element 111. The structural element 111/211 may include four arms 230 arranged in, for example, a square or rhombic formation and pivotally joined using pins 231 at each of the four corners of the formation. One of the corners 235 is to be attached to the floor 115, and thus, the opposite corner 234 is to provide support for the bottom of tissue box or tissue stack. A spring 232 (e.g., compression spring) may be mounted between one of the upper arms 230 and one of the lower arms 230 to provide elasticity to the structural element 211. Thus, in a relaxed/uncompressed state, the structural element 211 may have a certain height 233. When a downward force (e.g., the weight of the tissue box) is applied to the upper corner 234, the height 233 will decrease and spring 232 will be compressed. When the respective force is removed, the element 211 will gain the height 233 back under the influence of the compressed spring 232.

FIG. 2a illustrates an alternative design of the structural element 111 from FIG. 1. As shown, a supporting plate 442 may be attached to the upper/distal corner 234. The plate 442 will be substantially in a horizontal position to support the bottom of the tissue box 950 when the lower corner 235 of element 211 is mounted onto the floor 115 of the apparatus 100. Similarly, the plate 442 will be substantially in a vertical position to support the sides of the tissue box 950 when the lower corner 235 of element 211 is mounted onto the walls 114, 116 of the apparatus 100. The supporting plate 442 may be particularly useful to provide improved support when a stack of tissues, without the tissue box, is place directly in the disposing chamber 101.

FIG. 3 illustrates the front view of a structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1. The structural element 341 from FIG. 3 may be a band shaped as an arch and made from an elastic material, such as spring steel. It may be mounted as shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 5, or upside down as shown in FIG. 4. A supporting plate 442 may also be provided in association with the structural element 341 as shown in FIGS. 4-5.

FIG. 6 illustrates the cross-sectional view of another structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1. This structural element 643 may have a ball solid shape and may be made from an elastic material, such as foam rubber. FIG. 7 illustrates the cross-sectional view of yet another structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1. This structural element 744 may have an eggshell shape and may be made from an elastic material, such as rubber.

FIG. 8 illustrates the perspective view of yet another structural element that could replace the structural element 111 from FIG. 1. This structural element 846 may include a spring 845 associated with a supporting plate 442.

It should be understood that the alternative elastic structural elements depicted in FIGS. 3-8 are disclosed for exemplifications purposes only. Various other similar structures may be adopted. Further, it should be understood, that these alternative structural elements' function is similar with that of the elastic structural elements 111-113 as earlier described herein.

It may be advantageous to set forth definitions of certain words and phrases used in this patent document. The term “couple” and its derivatives refer to any direct or indirect communication between two or more elements, whether or not those elements are in physical contact with one another. The terms “include” and “comprise,” as well as derivatives thereof, mean inclusion without limitation. The term “or” is inclusive, meaning and/or. The phrases “associated with” and “associated therewith,” as well as derivatives thereof, may mean to include, be included within, interconnect with, contain, be contained within, connect to or with, couple to or with, be communicable with, cooperate with, interleave, juxtapose, be proximate to, be bound to or with, have, have a property of, or the like.

As used in this application, “plurality” means two or more. A “set” of items may include one or more of such items. Whether in the written description or the claims, the terms “comprising,” “including,” “carrying,” “having,” “containing,” “involving,” and the like are to be understood to be open-ended, i.e., to mean including but not limited to. Only the transitional phrases “consisting of” and “consisting essentially of,” respectively, are closed or semi-closed transitional phrases with respect to claims. Use of ordinal terms such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., in the claims to modify a claim element does not by itself connote any priority, precedence or order of one claim element over another or the temporal order in which acts of a method are performed. These terms are used merely as labels to distinguish one claim element having a certain name from another element having a same name (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claim elements. As used in this application, “and/or” means that the listed items are alternatives, but the alternatives also include any combination of the listed items.

Throughout this description, the embodiments and examples shown should be considered as exemplars, rather than limitations on the apparatus and procedures disclosed or claimed. Although many of the examples involve specific combinations of method acts or system elements, it should be understood that those acts and those elements may be combined in other ways to accomplish the same objectives. Acts, elements and features discussed only in connection with one embodiment are not intended to be excluded from a similar role in other embodiments.

Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein for the purpose of disclosing the preferred embodiments, someone of ordinary skills in the art will easily detect alternate embodiments and /or equivalent variations, which may be capable of achieving the same results, and which may be substituted for the specific embodiments illustrated and described herein without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefore, the scope of this application is intended to cover alternate embodiments and /or equivalent variations of the specific embodiments illustrated and/or described herein. Hence, the scope of the invention is defined by the accompanying claims and their equivalents. Furthermore, each and every claim is incorporated as further disclosure into the specification and the claims are embodiment(s) of the invention. 

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus for dispensing and disposing of tissues comprising a container having a front, a back, a left, a right and a bottom wall and being divided by a partition wall into two separate chambers, a dispensing chamber and a disposing chamber, a first door being associated with a first upper portion of the container and having a dispensing opening, the first door being configured to selectively close the dispensing chamber, a second door being associated with a second upper portion of the container and having a disposing opening, the second door being configured to selectively close the disposing chamber, wherein the dispensing chamber comprises three elastic structural elements, one associated with dispensing chamber's floor, another with a dispensing chamber's side wall and another with a dispensing chamber's adjacent side wall, such that the dispensing chamber can receive and hold tight tissue boxes or tissue stacks of various sizes, dispense tissues therefrom trough the dispensing opening, and wherein the disposing chamber can receive used tissues through the disposing opening.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the elastic structural element associated with the floor of the dispensing chamber has a height which is substantially equal with dispensing chamber's height.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the three elastic structural elements comprise four arms arranged in a square formation having four corners, the four arms being pivotally joined at each of the four corners of the formation, and a spring mounted between two opposite arms.
 4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein each of the three elastic structural elements comprises a support plate mounted at one of the four corners.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the three elastic structural elements comprises an elastic band shaped as an arch.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the three elastic structural elements comprises an elastic ball.
 7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of the three elastic structural elements comprises an elastic member shaped as an eggshell.
 8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the dispensing and disposing openings comprise flaps for preventing contaminants from entering the dispensing chamber or spreading out of the disposing chamber.
 9. A method for dispensing and disposing of tissues comprising: providing a container divided by a partition wall into two separate chambers, a dispensing chamber and a disposing chamber, wherein the dispensing chamber comprises three elastic structural elements, one associated with dispensing chamber's floor, another with a dispensing chamber's side wall and another with a dispensing chamber's adjacent side wall, such that the dispensing chamber can receive and hold tight tissue boxes or tissue stacks of various sizes, dispense tissues therefrom trough a dispensing opening, and wherein the disposing chamber can receive used tissues through a disposing opening. 